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  The cut hand.

  The rough tongue slid out again, this time lingering on the flesh below the pad of his thumb where the cut was deepest.

  It was drinking his blood.

  It’s sweet, David told himself. And the goat’s thirsty. That’s all.

  Nonetheless, David jerked the two sides of his boot apart, yanked his foot free, and scrambled back over the fence.

  He studied the goat, which licked at the leaves, searching for spilled drops of David’s juice. The animal glanced up and let its tongue loll, as if inviting David back over to its side of the fence.

  David turned and ran, the sock on one foot flopping out beyond his toes. Branches tore at his face as he plunged through the dark woods. The church visit could wait until sunrise. And, Harmon Smith’s sacred path or not, next time David would make the trip over gravel and asphalt, in the cab of a Chevy pick-up truck.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The doctor must have dosed her with some sort of horse pill, because Sarah Jeffers woke up with a mild headache. The sun was already streaming low through the window, so it must have been mid-morning. She hadn’t dreamed at all, and her tongue was thick and sticky in her mouth. It took her a moment to remember where she was.

  She peeled the sheet off her chest. She was dressed in a baby-poop-green gown tied loosely behind her back. Her clothes were folded in a chair at the foot of the steel-railed bed. So somebody had seen her naked, something that hadn’t happened in at least twenty years. Served them right. They had no business poking around in her innards anyway.

  She lay there, calculating yesterday’s lost profits. She should have called in one of the Hancocks, or the boy who swept up after school. Even paying somebody a full day’s wages, she would have netted fifty bucks at the least. And you never knew when a tourist bus was going to pull up, or a pack of Christian Harley riders. This time of year, with the fall colors starting to come on, the general store needed to bank enough to get her through the winter. Which meant she couldn’t lay there another day, not while customers turned away with full pockets.

  A new doctor came in, a man with a mustache that looked penciled over his lip, who looked more like a game-show host than somebody in the medical field. It was getting so you couldn’t peg people anymore.

  “Morning, Miss Jeffers. I’m Doctor Vincent.” The doctor put a wrist to her forehead and checked the tension on the clip attached to her finger. Apparently that little clip fed a lot of information to the video monitor on the wall. All the signs appeared to be jagging up and down in some kind of steady pattern.

  “Am I fit to go?” Sarah was going to ask for a cup of orange juice, but figured that would probably run her five bucks. She was on Medicare but she’d still be stuck with her twenty percent of the bill, meaning the juice would cost her a buck out-of-pocket. She wasn’t that thirsty.

  “Everything looks good,” the doctor said. “You had a rough patch for a little bit, but all your signs are stable. We’ve diagnosed exhaustion.”

  “I took on a spell,” Sarah said. “I’m all better now, like you said.”

  “I’ll sign your discharge papers, but I urge you to get some extra rest in the next few weeks. I wouldn’t want you coming back in with something more serious.”

  “Don’t you worry. I haven’t spent so much time in bed since my honeymoon, and that was before you were born.”

  The doctor almost grinned. “One thing ... while you were out, you were muttering ‘Harm me,’ over and over again. Did you think somebody was going to hurt you?”

  Sarah let her face slip into a mask of cool stone. “Nobody’s going to hurt me. I can take care of myself.”

  “Of that, I have no doubt.” He patted her hand. “I’ll have the nurse help you get your things together. Do you have someone to drive you home?”

  “I’ll call somebody.”

  “Good. Extra sleep for a while. Promise?”

  “Sure, Doc.”

  He left the room, and Sarah lay there in the stink of antiseptic. The beeping of the monitor accelerated and the jaggedy lines on the screen became erratic. Sarah removed the clip from her trembling finger. She must have been dreaming of him, to have called out his name like that.

  Not “harm me.”

  Harmon.

  Harmon Smith, the man in the black hat.

  ***

  When the bus picked Jett up, she walked straight down the aisle, her gaze fixed on the emergency release latch for the back door. Tommy Wilson let out a wolf whistle, and one of the third-graders was opening his lunch box, filling the air with peanut butter smell. She bit her lip and slid into the empty seat on the second row from the rear. Right in front of Tommy and Grady. She expected Tommy to make a grab as she sat, but he must have been too shocked by her abrupt approach.

  Tommy said, “Hey, Grady, I think she likes me.”

  “In your dreams, man.”

  “No, really. She knows when she’s licked ... all over.” Tommy snickered. Jett could smell it on them, the reason she had ventured into the goonie zone.

  “Why don’t you ask her, then?” Grady taunted. “If you’re so hot, why ain’t she sitting in your lap?”

  Jett didn’t turn. Compared to the inner-city school she had once attended, where fourth-graders sometimes carried switchblades, a Cross Valley Elementary bus offered little to fear. Tommy in his Carhartt jacket with the scuffed elbows was about as threatening as Fonzie from “Happy Days,” in that warm-and-fuzzy era after the likeable hoodlum had jumped the shark.

  “Yeah? Just watch a stud in action.” Tommy leaned over the seat. Jett could feel his breath on her neck, and the smell of pot was thick and potent. “Hey, sweet thing. I dig chicks in black.”

  She waited. Maybe he had been practicing his lines on his sister or something, because they sure were lame. He could have done better reading books like “How To Talk To Girls (And Don’t Call Them ‘Chicks’)” or hanging out in Internet chat rooms.

  “What do you say?” Tommy’s voice fell into a low, murmuring rhythm. “You know you want it. Can’t keep away, can you?”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” she said without turning.

  “She talked to you, dude,” Grady said.

  “Shut up.” Tommy moved closer, and now his breath was on her ear. “Want some of what I got?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do.”

  Tommy was silent, though he was panting audibly now.

  “Seven grams will do,” she said. Her father had mailed her fifty dollars, telling her it was for her personal use. This was about as personal as she could get.

  “Grams? Do what?”

  “Or do you sell it by the quarter-ounce up here? I don’t know if the metric system has hit the sticks yet.”

  “You ain’t right, girl.”

  “Come on, let’s not play games. You’ve reeked of marijuana since the first day I walked into school. The only reason the teachers can’t smell it is because they’re probably smoking it themselves.”

  “Hey, big-city bitch, don’t get so high and mighty. Just because you talk all fancy and got black stockings don’t mean you can—”

  Jett turned and put her face close to his, their noses almost touching. “Listen, redneck. Next time you lay a hand on me, I’ll take your fingers and shove them one by one up your asshole until you’re tickling your own tonsils.”

  Grady shrank into the corner, shooting a glance at the driver twenty rows up. Tommy blinked but didn’t back away. A kindergartner was crying in the front of the bus. Trees whizzed by beyond the windows, and leaves skirled along the gravel road in the draft of the bus’ wake.

  “I’ve got money and I need grass,” she said. “You’ve got grass and you need money.”

  “I don’t mess with that shit.”

  “Like hell. What’s that you were smoking this morning, goat turds?”

  Grady giggled and Tommy elbowed him in the ribs. “What if I could get some? I want something more than money.”

  “Like wh
at?”

  Tommy ran his tongue over his lips like a poisoned rat at a water puddle. “Some of your sweet stuff.”

  Jett tucked a strand of dyed hair behind her ear. “Fine. Bring it on. But there’s something you ought to know.”

  Tommy’s eyes widened, and Grady leaned toward her, too, not believing his good buddy was going to score. “What’s that?” Tommy said, in a dry croak.

  “I’ve got AIDS. So any time.”

  Tommy went pale. Jett faced the front, smiling to herself. The rumor would make the rounds, and by Christmas break some teacher or other would probably call her mom. It might even get as far as the school board. She’d probably be asked to take a blood test by next semester. With any luck, it would lead an indefinite suspension until the matter was cleared up.

  But by tomorrow, she would have a bag of pot, even if Tommy delivered it wearing rubber gloves and a surgical mask. The good times would roll, and all her problems would go up in smoke.

  ***

  Katy had gone back to bed after seeing off Jett. She lay under the covers, half asleep, trying to free the stolen sheet from Gordon’s clutches. This was Friday, and Gordon’s only class was in the afternoon. They had taken to sleeping late that day, especially as the mornings had grown chillier. Katy felt a bit decadent, having been a chronic early riser during her banking career. She still wasn’t sure if she missed working or not.

  Gordon snorted and rolled over against her. His body warmth was comforting and she let herself roll against him into the curved middle of the mattress. Rebecca’s weight had helped make the depression in the mattress, from her two thousand nights of lying here. But Rebecca was gone and now this space was hers.

  Katy wriggled her rear against his thigh, hoping to elicit a response. She was rewarded when one of his hands slid across her waist. It was the most intimate he had been in weeks. She wriggled some more and his hand slid up to her breast. She wished she had removed her bra. She’d always slept in the buff but Gordon had acted like that was a dirty habit. He wore pajamas, rumpled cotton that didn’t flatter him. The pajamas made him look like a nursing home inmate.

  Gordon squeezed her breast and her nipple hardened. She snuggled closer, hoping he would turn so she could feel his arousal. She twisted her neck and kissed his cheek. He smelled masculine, like wood smoke and metal. His hand worked her flesh in small circles.

  “Gordon,” she whispered, and a moan escaped her lips.

  She didn’t want to move away from his hand but a tiny spark had taken hold in the center of her body. She raised up on her elbow so that she was nearly over him. Even asleep, his body revealed evidence of his lust. His erection tented the blankets.

  Katy moaned and let her fingers slide between the buttons of his pajama top. Gordon grunted in his sleep and put his hand over hers. Katy nuzzled his neck and Gordon’s eyes flickered.

  “Rebecca,” he said in a hoarse, low whisper.

  Katy froze. Maybe he was dreaming that she was Rebecca, and that was the reason for his response. He’d barely touched Katy, had not even slipped her some tongue when they kissed, had left her to masturbate on their wedding night. But here he was as hard as Pittsburgh steel and as hot as Costa Rica, and it was his dead wife that was doing it for him.

  Not Katy.

  But Katy was so desperate for affection and contact that a cynical part of her took over. She would screw him no matter who she had to be. There was more than one way to consummate a marriage.

  “Yes, darling,” Katy said, not knowing where the endearment came from. She’d never said “darling” in her life. But she was slipping into a role, and the deception fueled her lust. If Rebecca was what Gordon wanted, then Katy would give her to him, and fulfill her own desires in the bargain.

  She pressed her lips to his and Gordon’s tongue probed her mouth. She was fully on him now, kicking the blankets away, pressing her chest against his. Gordon’s arms went around her back and stroked her hair. She raised one leg and straddled him, settling so that her vagina was over the straining bulge of his pajama bottoms. She rocked gently back and forth, savoring his saliva, breathing wildly through her nose.

  Gordon lifted himself, thrusting against her. He pulled his mouth free and gasped. “Yes,” he said.

  His hands came down to her bra strap and he deftly unhooked it. He peeled the bra away and flung it off the bed. She reached between their bodies for the waistband of his pajamas, wanting to unbutton them. Instead, her fingers found the fly and slid into the little pocket toward the heat beneath. She had seen his penis, of course, he hadn’t been that strange. But she had yet to see it in all its glory, pumped full of blood and quivering for release.

  “Oh, honey,” he whispered, and Katy no longer cared if he was talking to her or to Rebecca. The ache in her loins was taking over, and she probably would have ridden him if he had called her Catherine the Great.

  “Mmmm,” she said, not sure what sort of language to use. Mark liked dirty talk, and they’d often ranted themselves into a frenzy as they worked toward what were almost always simultaneous orgasms. She blushed for thinking of Mark, but her cheeks were already warm and pink and she decided that was no worse than Gordon’s little fantasy. Besides, her brain wasn’t the organ doing her thinking at the moment.

  Her fingers slipped into his pajamas and found the rigid flesh of his penis. There was still another layer of fabric over it, and she fumbled for the waistband of his briefs. Gordon’s hands enclosed her breasts, kneading them with a gentle firmness that suggested experience. While he’d been chaste with Katy, he certainly was no virgin.

  She was panting, her heart galloping, and a strand of drool hung from her lower lip. Her hand worked down his underwear and at last she had him. His penis was like a smooth piece of wood encased in warm velvet. She worked it free of the confines of cloth and stroked it, bringing tiny grunts of approval from Gordon.

  One of Gordon’s hands slid down her panties and she bit her lip as his middle finger slid between her labia. She was soaking wet and could smell her own juices. Gordon’s other hand continued to work her breasts, then his mouth enveloped her left nipple. She opened her eyes and saw the dark tangles of his hair and the slight bald spot at the top of his skull. Gordon’s throbbing heat nudged against her panties, then he eased one of the leg bands aside and slid the head against her moist outer folds.

  Katy fought an urge to mash herself down onto him. This was their first time, and it should be slow. As much as she hated to break the contact of his tongue on her nipple, she tilted his head back to look him in the eyes.

  “Gordon,” she said, and the word came from low in her throat, like the growl of an animal.

  His eyes remained closed, though his eyelids fluttered as if he were asleep and experiencing the rapid eye movements associated with dreaming.

  She rubbed his penis against her, making his skin damp and slick. She stroked down until she felt his coarse pubic hair, then squeezed the base of his turgid stalk. Her hips quivered of their own accord, and she knew she couldn’t hold out much longer. Gordon’s finger returned to the sheath inside her and caressed her clitoris. He was definitely no virgin.

  “Rebecca,” he said, lifting his hips off the bed and pushing the head of his penis inside her.

  Katy almost hesitated. This was too weird. The only way she could get laid was to pretend to be dead. Or, more precisely, be someone who had died. Her rival. The woman she hated.

  But another part of her saw it as revenge, as if she were seducing Gordon into cheating on Rebecca. She knew how crazy that sounded, but lust made people crazy anyway, and if she were going off the deep end she wanted to go with a bang.

  Katy impaled herself on his hardness and felt the burning length of it drive inside her. She raised again and settled, letting it slide even more deeply.

  “Rebecca,” he repeated.

  “Yes, darling, I’m here,” she said, shivering in anticipation and an odd sensation that she might have recognized as fear if s
he weren’t so far gone. She scarcely recognized her own voice.

  Gordon’s hands went around her waist and lifted her, then let her fall back down. They gained speed, working toward a frantic pace, Gordon grunting, his lips peeled back and teeth clenched, his eyes still closed.

  Katy flung her head back, hair flailing across her shoulders. She put her hands on his chest and caught his rhythm, pushing herself down as he released her waist at each apex. His penis filled her, and a glow built from inside her belly, a tiny spark expanding into a golden fire.

  “Yes, darling, yes,” she said, words interrupted by thrusts. “Give it to me.”

  She started to scream “Fuck me harder,” but something held her back. After all, Gordon wasn’t Mark and she’d have to adjust her sexual habits. And it didn’t seem like the kind of thing Rebecca would say.

  She smelled lilacs, but before she could comprehend the scent the fire expanded and electricity jumped the wires in her arms and legs and this was way better than another lonely bout with the vibrator as the flood of his passion erupted inside her and their hips slammed together and she may have shouted something and she hoped to God it wasn’t Mark’s name, not that Gordon would have heard her anyway because he gave a loud, shuddering groan and thrust up against her, lifting her nearly a foot off the bed. They collapsed with a squeak of bedsprings and Gordon thrust again, less vigorously this time, but she was finishing her own orgasm and so pressed down enough for both of them.

  Their bodies writhed together several more times before slowing. Katy relaxed onto Gordon’s chest, her hair flowing over his neck and shoulders, chest heaving from effort. The area below her waist was warm taffy and she couldn’t tell where she ended and Gordon began. His arms went around her and he squeezed more tightly than he ever had before, even when the minister David Tester had pronounced them man and wife in the little church on the other side of the mountain.